..  ..Pamela Lynn Perillo ...No 665 ...Mountain View Unit - Gatesville, Texas ...Year of Birth 1955 ...Marital Status single ...Children one ...Date of offense February 23, 1980 ...Sentenced to death September 2, 1980 ...Status Sentenced to life plus 30 years . Click on the image to view a larger version. Scroll below for an account of the session.

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In March 1980, Pamela Lynn Perillo hailed a police officer in Denver, Colorado. Later, at police headquarters, she gave an full confession. She, James Michael Briddle, & Briddle's wife, Pamela Fletcher, had hitchhiked from California to Texas to avoid apprehension for an armed robbery. On February 21, 1980, they had been picked up in Houston by Bob Banks. Banks was in the process of moving, & had agreed to let the 3 stay at his house in exchange for their help. A friend of his, Bob Skeens, would also help. On February 23, the 3 hitchhikers decided to rob Banks & Skeens. They bound the 2 men & strangled them with nylon rope. After taking various items from the house, they fled in Skeen's car. Tried separately in 1980, Briddle & Perillo were sentenced to death. In both trials the state's chief witness was Pamela Fletcher, Who claimed she had not participated in the killings. She was subsequently sentenced to 5 years of probation. An error in jury selection won Perillo a second trial, but in November 1980 she was reconvicted & was again sentenced to death. One striking theme kept surfacing in case after case: child abuse. Being abused as a child, or witnessing domestic battering, is the environmental factor most often cited as a contributor to juvenile violence. It is a large part of a complicated formula swelling the American prison population. Fifteen years ago, Pam Perillo left California to escape arrest & a life of drugs, crime, & abuse. Headed for Florida in search of a new life, she stopped in Texas for what she thought would be 2 days. "My mother died when I was 10 & when she died, my father started drinking a lot & became an alcoholic & there was sexual abuse between my sister & myself with him & my sister was taken away to live with relatives from Iowa. And I was running away from home & then I was put in foster homes. I was in 8 different foster homes & I was made a ward of the court & taken from my father's custody. I started using drugs when I was 11 & just lived a very crazy life after that & my father was arrested for sexual abuse. I turned him in. I turned him in to a friend. She told her mom & they told the police & all that & he had to go & take the lie detector test....I was 12." In 1980, Pam became the first woman to be sentenced to death in Texas since 1963. The media's portrayal of her case was so distorted, she has refused all interviews since then. Geraldo Rivera & Montel Williams are among the many who have unsuccessfully requested interviews with her. One of fewer than 50 women on death row in the US-6 of them in Texas-Pam chooses to maintain a low profile.

"Every time they write an article about death row & about women on death row or every time my fall partner [James Briddle] does something stupid over there, my name is dragged right through it....My fall partner is involved in the Aryan Brotherhood, which is the white-racist thing & he's tried to kill several black men over there & every time he does something stupid, my name is right there in the paper. Two days before I was going to trial the 2nd time, he made a homemade bomb...& threw it in & burnt this guy really bad, really bad, & it was all in the paper about him doing it & his involvement in the Aryan Brotherhood & there my name was...." She admits the prison routine is not as bad as it could be. She chain smokes. She has more tattoos than she cares to count. On the day we were visiting, she wore makeup: eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, & very red fingernails. As emotional as she sometimes seemed, she never appeared to break. It was impossible to know whether it was the years in prison that had taught her to keep herself in such complete control. She convinced us she was not afraid to die. She never blamed anyone or anything for her fate. "You know, it's strange but when I was out there using heroin all the time, I used to say, "I'm a hope-to-die dope fiend & when I die I'm going to die with a needle in my arm." And never did I even imagine I would end up in Texas where they kill you by lethal injection." Though she never married, Pam is a mother. Her son & his adopted grandmother visit once a month, driving 3 hours each way. He has never known her outside of jail. When he started asking questions about why other prisoners were getting out, but she wasn't, she told him the truth. "Yeah, he understood. He fell apart when I told him that I could be executed. He took it really hard....We both cried & it was very hard because I wanted to hug him & I couldn't [there are no contact visits in Texas....We just all sat there for 4 hours crying & talking & being honest. He's not ashamed of where I am....He'll tell anybody his mother's in prison." I belatedly realized I was talking to a woman accused of killing another human being. In fact, 90 percent of violent criminals are men. "Our victims [the people we kill] aren't the only victims. Our families are the victims & our children are the victims. They go through this too. So that, you know, we have not only hurt our victims' families but we-we're hurting our own...." With 16 years on death row, Pam's chances of receiving a reprieve are dwindling. She was once awarded a new trial, but the jury reconvicted her & sentenced her to death. Soon after we visited Pam, her new execution date was announced. Jim Briddle was executed in the winter of 1995. On Mother's Day in 1995 Pam received another stay of her execution.